Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris on July 29, 1805. Tocqueville's father was a royalist prefect from Normandy who supported the Bourbon monarchy, his great-grandfather was a liberal aristocrat killed in the French Revolution, and his mother was a devout Roman Catholic who strongly advocated a return on the Old Regime.
Tocqueville's father's appointments as prefect of different towns meant that he lived away from the family for much of Tocqueville's early life. In his father's absence, Abbe Lesueur was Tocqueville's tutor. At age 16 Tocquevile entered the College Royal in Metz to study philosophy. During this time Tocqueville began to have doubts about the role of the aristocracy in French government and suffered a deep religious crisis that would effect him for the rest of his life. After finishing at the College Royal at age 18, Tocqueville moved back to Paris where he studied law.
In the meantime, Tocqueville's father's career had been steadily advancing until, in 1826, he became prefect of Versailles (the most influential prefecture in France) and in 1827 was made a peer by Charles X. At the same time, Tocqueville received a position as apprentice magistrate at the Versailles court of law. During this period Tocqueville began to have increasingly liberal sympathies as a result of his belief that the decline of the aristocracy was inevitable.
The July Revolution of 1830, in which Charles X abdicated and Louis-Philippe acceded to the throne, had strong repercussions on Tocqueville's life. As a result of the revolution and the change of power from the Bourbon to the Orleans family, Tocqueville's father lost his peerage and Tocqueville's position in France became precarious. Seeing that France was moving toward increasing democratization, he looked to the United States as a political model. With the pretext of wanting to study prison reforms in America, Tocqueville obtained permission to travel there in order to gain knowledge of American political development, knowledge which he hoped to use in order to influence France's political development. After his trip to America, Tocqueville visited England to study the British system of government.
In 1835, the first part of Democracy in America was published. A highly positive and optimistic account of American government and society, the book was very well received throughout Europe. That same year Tocqueville married Mary Motley, an Englishwoman. The marriage was a scandal to Tocqueville's family because they considered Mary Motley to be of inferior birth. Tocqueville's mother died in 1836.
After the death of his mother Tocqueville reentered politics. In 1837 he ran for the Chamber of Deputies but lost, mostly because of his noble background. The following year he was named to the Legion of Honor for Democracy in America, and in 1839 he was elected to the Chamber.
In 1840 the second part of Democracy in America was published. This volume was substantially more pessimistic than the first, warning of the dangers despotism and governmental centralization, and applying his ideas and criticisms more directly to France. As a result, it was not received as well as the first part, except in England where it was acclaimed highly.
In 1841 Tocqueville was elected to the French Academy and the Academy of Moral and Political Science. That same year he visited Algeria, a French colony, and sharply criticized the French military and bureaucracy in the country.
In the Chamber of Deputies, Tocqueville advocated expanding naval power to challenge British dominance and supported the Catholic Church's teaching role in a dispute between the Church and the University. This act was consistent with the beliefs he outlined in Democracy in America regarding the importance of religion in a democracy. In his political views, Tocqueville was moving increasingly toward the left. He became one of the owners of the radical newspaper Le Commerce in 1844, but left the paper the next year because of its immanent financial failure. In 1846 he aligned himself with the "new left" faction in the Chamber, but when there was a rejection of parliamentary and electoral reform by the Chamber and the leftist parties began a banquet campaign to garner support for the opposition, the new left did not join because it did not want to encourage political agitation. Tocqueville gave a speech early in 1848 predicting the outbreak of a revolution, but his warning was ignored.
Tocqueville was opposed the Revolution of 1848, but worked to help form the new government in the revolution's aftermath. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly and helped to write the constitution of the Second Republic. The following year Tocqueville was elected to the Legislative Assembly and became Vice President of the Assembly and Minister of Foreign Affairs. This position did not last long, however, because President Louis-Napolean Bonaparte dismissed him later that year. After his dismissal Tocqueville suffered a physical breakdown and went to Italy to recover his health.
Tocqueville returned to Paris in 1851, before Louis-Napoleon's coup to take over the government. Strongly opposed to the coup, Tocqueville was imprisoned briefly and then barred from holding public office because he refused to swear allegiance to the new regime.
Excluded from political life, Tocqueville focused on writing The Old Regime and the French Revolution in the early 1850s. This work is an account of French history leading up to the French Revolution in 1789 which emphasizes factors which led to the failure of the Revolution and the continual lapses into despotic government which Tocqueville witnessed during his lifetime.
In 1856 Tocqueville's father died. Just a few years later, on April 16, 1859, Tocqueville himself died of tuberculosis. His Recollections were published posthumously in 1893.
1805
July 29 - Alexis de Tocqueville is born in Paris and spends most of his younger years in Verneuil, where his father, Herve, is mayor. As a child, Alexis was tutored by the Abbe Leseur.
1814-1828
Tocqueville's father serves as prefect throughout France - Angers, Beauvais, Dijon, Metz, Amiens and Versailles. In 1817, Tocqueville moves from Metz to Paris with his mother, Louise.
1820-24
Tocqueville returns to Metz at his father's request to attend secondary school and the college royal, where he studies rhetoric and philosophy.
1825-27
Studies law in Paris while living with his mother in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
1826
December - Goes to Italy with his brother Edouard and visits Rome, Naples and Sicily; writes Voyage en Sicile.
1827
Appointed juge auditeur (mediator) at the court of law in Versailles, an unsalaried apprenticeship.
1828
Takes an apartment in rue d'Anjou with Gustave de Beaumont, the deputy public prosecutor at the court of Versailles.
In Versailles he meets Mary Motley, of England, who later becomes his wife.
1829-1830
Reads and discusses history with Beaumont; both of them are taking Francois-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot's course in the history of civilization in France.
1830 The July Revolution: Charles X, the last Bourbon king, is overthrown and replaced by the constitutional monarch Louis-Philippe, who obliges all civil servants to swear an oath of loyalty. Tocqueville reluctantly takes the oath August 16 and again in October when he is promoted to juge suppleant (substitute judge).
August - Tocqueville begins thinking of visiting the United States.
October - Beaumont writes a report to the minister of the interior on the reform of the French penal system.
1831
February 6 - Tocqueville and Beaumont are given an 18-month leave to study the penal system in the United States.
April 2 - They embark for America from Le Havre, France.
May 9 - Arrive at Newport, Rhode Island, going on to New York; thereafter they travel as far west as Green Bay, on Lake Michigan, north to Quebec and south to New Orleans.
1832
February 20 - Leave for France, arriving home in late March. Beaumont begins writing Du systeme penitentiaire with Tocqueville supplying facts and ideas.
May 17 - Tocqueville resigns his position as juge suppleant when he learns of Beaumont's dismissal (May 16) as deputy public prosecutor.
1833
January - Tocqueville and Beaumont publish Du systeme penitentiaire aux Etats-Unis et de son application en France, winning the French Academy's Montyon Prize.
August - Tocqueville visits England and meets Nassau William Senior.
September - Tocqueville begins writing Democracy in America at his parents' home in Paris, 49 rue de Verneuil.
1834
August 14 - Finishes the first part of Democracy in America.
December 24 - a prepublication article by Leon Faucher appears in Le Courier francais.
1835
January - Gosselin publishes an edition of fewer than 500 copies of Democracy in America.
March 16 - Tocqueville meets Henry Reeve, who becomes a lifelong friend and the official translator of his work, in Paris.
March 31 - Chateaubriand introduces Tocqueville to the select salon of Mme Recamier.
April 25 - August 23 - Tocqueville and Beaumont visit England and Ireland, studying industrial towns such as Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.
June - The book's success leads to a second edition (the eighth edition, in 1840, will include the second and final part).
October - John Stuart Mill's highly complimentary review of Democracy in America appears in the London Review.
October 26 - Tocqueville and Mary Motley are wed at the Church of Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, Paris, with his cousin Louis de Kergorlay and Beaumont as witnesses.
1836
Tocqueville's mother, Louise, dies. When her property is divided, Tocqueville receives the chateau and lands of Tocqueville and the title of cmte, which he does not use.
Tocqueville receives the Montyon prize from the French Academy for Democracy in America
July - Beaumont marries Clementine de Lafayette, granddaughter of the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834)
1839
March - Tocqueville is elected deputy from Valognes, sitting on the left of center, and is considered an expert on prisons and slavery.
July 23 - As rapporteur for a committee on slavery, Tocqueville files a report advocating the immediate emancipation of all slaves in French possessions, which is published as a pamphlet by the Society for the Abolition of Slavery.
November - Completes the manuscript of the second part of Democracy in America
1840
April 20 - Democracy in America, part II, is published simultaneously in Paris and in London, in a translation by Henry Reeve.
October - John Stuart Mill writes a perceptive review of Tocqueville's work in the Edinburgh Review
1841
May 4 - June 11 - Tocqueville goes to Algeria with his brother Hippolyte and Beaumont, visiting Algiers, Mostaganem, Philippeville (now Skikda) and other cities and villages.
October - Tocqueville writes Travail sur l'Algerie.
December 23 - Tocqueville is elected to the French Academy.
1842
Tocqueville actively engages in debates in the Chamber of Deputies on issues such as the slave trade, Algerian colonization and reforms and the question of succession after Louis-Phillipe's death, in which he favors an elective regency.
1844
Tocqueville sits for a portrait drawing by Theodore Chasseriau, brother of his friend Frderic Chasseriau.
June 29 - With others, Tocqueville purchases the newspaper Le Commerce.
August - Le Commerce fails; it is sold in November.
1848
January 27 - Speaking in the Chamber of Deputies, Tocqueville prophesies the coming revolution and attacks the too-narrow base of the French political system.
February 24 - Louis-Philippe abdicates and the Second Republic is declared dead.
1848
April 24 - Tocqueville is elected to the Constituent Assembly.
May 17 - Tocqueville is elected to a committee charged with drawing up a new constitution.
December 10 - Louis-Napoleon is elected president and forms a new cabinet led by Odilon Barrot.
1849
May 7 - Tocqueville goes to Germany to observe the revolution there firsthand.
May 13 - Tocqueville is elected to the new legislative Assembly by a large margin. Less than a month later, Louis-Napoleon appoints him minister of foreign affairs.
October 31 - Louis-Napoleon replaces Tocqueville and other ministers after the Barrot ministry topples.
1850
March - Tocqueville suffers his first pulmonary attack and is seriously ill with tuberculosis.
July - At the Chateau de Tocqueville, he begins writing his Souvenirs, reflections on the February Revolution and on his ministry. He is reelected president of the departmental council of la Manche.
November 1 - April 14 - With Mme de Tocqueville, he goes to Sorrento, Italy to convalesce.
1851
July - Tocqueville finishes Souvenirs.
December 2 - Louis-Napoleon seizes control of government in a coup d'etat.
December 3 - Tocqueville, along with about 50 other representatives, is imprisoned overnight at Vincennes for his opposition to the coup.
December 11 - Tocqueville secretly conveys and anonymously publishes an article in the London Times condemning the coup.
1852
July - Once more at the Chateau de Tocqueville, Tocqueville resigns from the departmental council of la Manche when the new regime requires an oath of allegiance.
1853
June - Tocqueville settles for a year in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, in Touraine, where he tries to regain his health and begins research on his work on the Ancien Regime.
1854
June - September - With Mme de Tocqueville, he visits Germany to study the vestiges of feudalism and the fading revolution there.
November 6 - He settles in Compiegne, where his father lives.
1855
July - Tocqueville moves to the Chateau de Tocqueville, where he continues writing.
1856
January - Tocqueville finishes revising his study on the Ancien Regime. The manuscript is read by his father, Herve, his brothers Edouard and Hippolyte, Beaumont and others.
February 16 - In Paris, Tocqueville negotiates with Michael Levy for the publication of L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution.
June 9 - His father, Herve, dies.
June 16 - L'Ancien Regime is published simultaneously in France and England (translated by Henry Reeve) and is a great success.
June - He returns to the Chateau de Tocqueville
1857
June 19 - Tocqueville goes to the British Museum in London to do research on the revolution.
October - Begins writing the first book of his sequel to L'Ancien Regime.
1858
April - Goes to Paris to study papers of municipal authorities, at the archives.
1858
May - He returns, ill with tuberculosis, to the Chateau de Tocqueville.
October 28 - At the advice of physicians, he goes to Cannes and soon hires a reader for intellectual stimulus.
December - His brother, Hippolyte, comes to Cannes for three months.
1859
April 6 - Beaumont arrives at Tocqueville's bedside.
April 9 - Tocqueville's cousin, Louis de Kergolay, arrives in Cannes.
April 16 - Tocqueville dies. A religious ceremony is held in Cannes, after which his body is moved to Paris and placed in the crypt of the Eglise de la Madeleine and then transported to the village of Tocqueville. He is buried in the cemetery there May 10.
Table of Contents
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
Major Works
(1833) On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application to France
(1835/1840) Democracy in America.(published in two volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840)
(1856) The Old Regime and the Revolution
(1893) Recollections
(1831-32) Journey to America
Biography
Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris on July 29, 1805. Tocqueville's father was a royalist prefect from Normandy who supported the Bourbon monarchy, his great-grandfather was a liberal aristocrat killed in the French Revolution, and his mother was a devout Roman Catholic who strongly advocated a return on the Old Regime.
Tocqueville's father's appointments as prefect of different towns meant that he lived away from the family for much of Tocqueville's early life. In his father's absence, Abbe Lesueur was Tocqueville's tutor. At age 16 Tocquevile entered the College Royal in Metz to study philosophy. During this time Tocqueville began to have doubts about the role of the aristocracy in French government and suffered a deep religious crisis that would effect him for the rest of his life. After finishing at the College Royal at age 18, Tocqueville moved back to Paris where he studied law.
In the meantime, Tocqueville's father's career had been steadily advancing until, in 1826, he became prefect of Versailles (the most influential prefecture in France) and in 1827 was made a peer by Charles X. At the same time, Tocqueville received a position as apprentice magistrate at the Versailles court of law. During this period Tocqueville began to have increasingly liberal sympathies as a result of his belief that the decline of the aristocracy was inevitable.
The July Revolution of 1830, in which Charles X abdicated and Louis-Philippe acceded to the throne, had strong repercussions on Tocqueville's life. As a result of the revolution and the change of power from the Bourbon to the Orleans family, Tocqueville's father lost his peerage and Tocqueville's position in France became precarious. Seeing that France was moving toward increasing democratization, he looked to the United States as a political model. With the pretext of wanting to study prison reforms in America, Tocqueville obtained permission to travel there in order to gain knowledge of American political development, knowledge which he hoped to use in order to influence France's political development. After his trip to America, Tocqueville visited England to study the British system of government.
In 1835, the first part of Democracy in America was published. A highly positive and optimistic account of American government and society, the book was very well received throughout Europe. That same year Tocqueville married Mary Motley, an Englishwoman. The marriage was a scandal to Tocqueville's family because they considered Mary Motley to be of inferior birth. Tocqueville's mother died in 1836.
After the death of his mother Tocqueville reentered politics. In 1837 he ran for the Chamber of Deputies but lost, mostly because of his noble background. The following year he was named to the Legion of Honor for Democracy in America, and in 1839 he was elected to the Chamber.
In 1840 the second part of Democracy in America was published. This volume was substantially more pessimistic than the first, warning of the dangers despotism and governmental centralization, and applying his ideas and criticisms more directly to France. As a result, it was not received as well as the first part, except in England where it was acclaimed highly.
In 1841 Tocqueville was elected to the French Academy and the Academy of Moral and Political Science. That same year he visited Algeria, a French colony, and sharply criticized the French military and bureaucracy in the country.
In the Chamber of Deputies, Tocqueville advocated expanding naval power to challenge British dominance and supported the Catholic Church's teaching role in a dispute between the Church and the University. This act was consistent with the beliefs he outlined in Democracy in America regarding the importance of religion in a democracy. In his political views, Tocqueville was moving increasingly toward the left. He became one of the owners of the radical newspaper Le Commerce in 1844, but left the paper the next year because of its immanent financial failure. In 1846 he aligned himself with the "new left" faction in the Chamber, but when there was a rejection of parliamentary and electoral reform by the Chamber and the leftist parties began a banquet campaign to garner support for the opposition, the new left did not join because it did not want to encourage political agitation. Tocqueville gave a speech early in 1848 predicting the outbreak of a revolution, but his warning was ignored.
Tocqueville was opposed the Revolution of 1848, but worked to help form the new government in the revolution's aftermath. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly and helped to write the constitution of the Second Republic. The following year Tocqueville was elected to the Legislative Assembly and became Vice President of the Assembly and Minister of Foreign Affairs. This position did not last long, however, because President Louis-Napolean Bonaparte dismissed him later that year. After his dismissal Tocqueville suffered a physical breakdown and went to Italy to recover his health.
Tocqueville returned to Paris in 1851, before Louis-Napoleon's coup to take over the government. Strongly opposed to the coup, Tocqueville was imprisoned briefly and then barred from holding public office because he refused to swear allegiance to the new regime.
Excluded from political life, Tocqueville focused on writing The Old Regime and the French Revolution in the early 1850s. This work is an account of French history leading up to the French Revolution in 1789 which emphasizes factors which led to the failure of the Revolution and the continual lapses into despotic government which Tocqueville witnessed during his lifetime.
In 1856 Tocqueville's father died. Just a few years later, on April 16, 1859, Tocqueville himself died of tuberculosis. His Recollections were published posthumously in 1893.
Source: http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/authors/about_alexis_tocqueville.html
Timeline of Tocqueville's Life
1805
July 29 - Alexis de Tocqueville is born in Paris and spends most of his younger years in Verneuil, where his father, Herve, is mayor. As a child, Alexis was tutored by the Abbe Leseur.
1814-1828
Tocqueville's father serves as prefect throughout France - Angers, Beauvais, Dijon, Metz, Amiens and Versailles. In 1817, Tocqueville moves from Metz to Paris with his mother, Louise.
1820-24
Tocqueville returns to Metz at his father's request to attend secondary school and the college royal, where he studies rhetoric and philosophy.
1825-27
Studies law in Paris while living with his mother in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
1826
December - Goes to Italy with his brother Edouard and visits Rome, Naples and Sicily; writes Voyage en Sicile.
1827
Appointed juge auditeur (mediator) at the court of law in Versailles, an unsalaried apprenticeship.
1828
Takes an apartment in rue d'Anjou with Gustave de Beaumont, the deputy public prosecutor at the court of Versailles.
In Versailles he meets Mary Motley, of England, who later becomes his wife.
1829-1830
Reads and discusses history with Beaumont; both of them are taking Francois-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot's course in the history of civilization in France.
1830
The July Revolution: Charles X, the last Bourbon king, is overthrown and replaced by the constitutional monarch Louis-Philippe, who obliges all civil servants to swear an oath of loyalty. Tocqueville reluctantly takes the oath August 16 and again in October when he is promoted to juge suppleant (substitute judge).
August - Tocqueville begins thinking of visiting the United States.
October - Beaumont writes a report to the minister of the interior on the reform of the French penal system.
1831
February 6 - Tocqueville and Beaumont are given an 18-month leave to study the penal system in the United States.
April 2 - They embark for America from Le Havre, France.
May 9 - Arrive at Newport, Rhode Island, going on to New York; thereafter they travel as far west as Green Bay, on Lake Michigan, north to Quebec and south to New Orleans.
1832
February 20 - Leave for France, arriving home in late March. Beaumont begins writing Du systeme penitentiaire with Tocqueville supplying facts and ideas.
May 17 - Tocqueville resigns his position as juge suppleant when he learns of Beaumont's dismissal (May 16) as deputy public prosecutor.
1833
January - Tocqueville and Beaumont publish Du systeme penitentiaire aux Etats-Unis et de son application en France, winning the French Academy's Montyon Prize.
August - Tocqueville visits England and meets Nassau William Senior.
September - Tocqueville begins writing Democracy in America at his parents' home in Paris, 49 rue de Verneuil.
1834
August 14 - Finishes the first part of Democracy in America.
December 24 - a prepublication article by Leon Faucher appears in Le Courier francais.
1835
January - Gosselin publishes an edition of fewer than 500 copies of Democracy in America.
March 16 - Tocqueville meets Henry Reeve, who becomes a lifelong friend and the official translator of his work, in Paris.
March 31 - Chateaubriand introduces Tocqueville to the select salon of Mme Recamier.
April 25 - August 23 - Tocqueville and Beaumont visit England and Ireland, studying industrial towns such as Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool.
June - The book's success leads to a second edition (the eighth edition, in 1840, will include the second and final part).
October - John Stuart Mill's highly complimentary review of Democracy in America appears in the London Review.
October 26 - Tocqueville and Mary Motley are wed at the Church of Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, Paris, with his cousin Louis de Kergorlay and Beaumont as witnesses.
1836
Tocqueville's mother, Louise, dies. When her property is divided, Tocqueville receives the chateau and lands of Tocqueville and the title of cmte, which he does not use.
Tocqueville receives the Montyon prize from the French Academy for Democracy in America
July - Beaumont marries Clementine de Lafayette, granddaughter of the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834)
1839
March - Tocqueville is elected deputy from Valognes, sitting on the left of center, and is considered an expert on prisons and slavery.
July 23 - As rapporteur for a committee on slavery, Tocqueville files a report advocating the immediate emancipation of all slaves in French possessions, which is published as a pamphlet by the Society for the Abolition of Slavery.
November - Completes the manuscript of the second part of Democracy in America
1840
April 20 - Democracy in America, part II, is published simultaneously in Paris and in London, in a translation by Henry Reeve.
October - John Stuart Mill writes a perceptive review of Tocqueville's work in the Edinburgh Review
1841
May 4 - June 11 - Tocqueville goes to Algeria with his brother Hippolyte and Beaumont, visiting Algiers, Mostaganem, Philippeville (now Skikda) and other cities and villages.
October - Tocqueville writes Travail sur l'Algerie.
December 23 - Tocqueville is elected to the French Academy.
1842
Tocqueville actively engages in debates in the Chamber of Deputies on issues such as the slave trade, Algerian colonization and reforms and the question of succession after Louis-Phillipe's death, in which he favors an elective regency.
1844
Tocqueville sits for a portrait drawing by Theodore Chasseriau, brother of his friend Frderic Chasseriau.
June 29 - With others, Tocqueville purchases the newspaper Le Commerce.
August - Le Commerce fails; it is sold in November.
1848
January 27 - Speaking in the Chamber of Deputies, Tocqueville prophesies the coming revolution and attacks the too-narrow base of the French political system.
February 24 - Louis-Philippe abdicates and the Second Republic is declared dead.
1848
April 24 - Tocqueville is elected to the Constituent Assembly.
May 17 - Tocqueville is elected to a committee charged with drawing up a new constitution.
December 10 - Louis-Napoleon is elected president and forms a new cabinet led by Odilon Barrot.
1849
May 7 - Tocqueville goes to Germany to observe the revolution there firsthand.
May 13 - Tocqueville is elected to the new legislative Assembly by a large margin. Less than a month later, Louis-Napoleon appoints him minister of foreign affairs.
October 31 - Louis-Napoleon replaces Tocqueville and other ministers after the Barrot ministry topples.
1850
March - Tocqueville suffers his first pulmonary attack and is seriously ill with tuberculosis.
July - At the Chateau de Tocqueville, he begins writing his Souvenirs, reflections on the February Revolution and on his ministry. He is reelected president of the departmental council of la Manche.
November 1 - April 14 - With Mme de Tocqueville, he goes to Sorrento, Italy to convalesce.
1851
July - Tocqueville finishes Souvenirs.
December 2 - Louis-Napoleon seizes control of government in a coup d'etat.
December 3 - Tocqueville, along with about 50 other representatives, is imprisoned overnight at Vincennes for his opposition to the coup.
December 11 - Tocqueville secretly conveys and anonymously publishes an article in the London Times condemning the coup.
1852
July - Once more at the Chateau de Tocqueville, Tocqueville resigns from the departmental council of la Manche when the new regime requires an oath of allegiance.
1853
June - Tocqueville settles for a year in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, in Touraine, where he tries to regain his health and begins research on his work on the Ancien Regime.
1854
June - September - With Mme de Tocqueville, he visits Germany to study the vestiges of feudalism and the fading revolution there.
November 6 - He settles in Compiegne, where his father lives.
1855
July - Tocqueville moves to the Chateau de Tocqueville, where he continues writing.
1856
January - Tocqueville finishes revising his study on the Ancien Regime. The manuscript is read by his father, Herve, his brothers Edouard and Hippolyte, Beaumont and others.
February 16 - In Paris, Tocqueville negotiates with Michael Levy for the publication of L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution.
June 9 - His father, Herve, dies.
June 16 - L'Ancien Regime is published simultaneously in France and England (translated by Henry Reeve) and is a great success.
June - He returns to the Chateau de Tocqueville
1857
June 19 - Tocqueville goes to the British Museum in London to do research on the revolution.
October - Begins writing the first book of his sequel to L'Ancien Regime.
1858
April - Goes to Paris to study papers of municipal authorities, at the archives.
1858
May - He returns, ill with tuberculosis, to the Chateau de Tocqueville.
October 28 - At the advice of physicians, he goes to Cannes and soon hires a reader for intellectual stimulus.
December - His brother, Hippolyte, comes to Cannes for three months.
1859
April 6 - Beaumont arrives at Tocqueville's bedside.
April 9 - Tocqueville's cousin, Louis de Kergolay, arrives in Cannes.
April 16 - Tocqueville dies. A religious ceremony is held in Cannes, after which his body is moved to Paris and placed in the crypt of the Eglise de la Madeleine and then transported to the village of Tocqueville. He is buried in the cemetery there May 10.
Source: http://www.tocqueville.org/chap1.htm